Monday, December 30, 2013

Land Slide Show

This past summer and fall our biggest challenge and greatest accomplishment, was for my family and I to produce the "Textured Structure". It was for an art show, mostly outdoor, at the Markham Museum and Pioneer Village, curated by our friend Janine Marchessault.

We were asked to build a simple structure that showed the past and future and incorporated an artistic component as well. There were another 32 artists exhibiting also, but we were the only ones that actually built a building.
Whew, to say it was not easy is an understatement, as we really didn't realize how much work was involved. But, as in a lot of hard work, the result and being actually finished by deadline, brought big rewards.
The building is a stick frame, 8 feet by 12 feet, Amish lumber throughout, with a pine floor and unfinished inside. The 4 different outside walls were divided up among myself, and my three sons. Skyler chose stackwall, Ian a painting on the front gable and Misha used cedar slab wood from the local sawmill to finish the back wall. I did a passive solar style wall, with a Trombe wall inside to keep the heat in during cold weather and keep the sun out in the summer. Lillian did the concept for the roof-- cedar shingles on one side and cedar coloured ashpalt on the other, mixed with metal and a photovoltaic solar panel on the south side. Lillian also planted a garden of veggies in 2 planter's boxes we built, and then we added a cedar deck in front. All the windows and door were used and recycled.
We began in early summer looking towards a September 21st opening. Along with our other building projects, there wasn't much time for anything else, such as barn tours, canoe trips, or reading in the hammock, but in the end, it was fun.

About Me

We have lived on our farm since 1984 and I have been notching timber frames for most of those years. I became more interested in repairing old barns and now provide a service inspecting all aspects of the barn structure. As well, I have been a reporter with local newspapers, magazines, and as a result of my barn interest wrote two books on barns.